Vientiane, Laos, Asia

Last night was a fairly good ride, I only woke up a few times and probably got 4-5 hours of sleep. I got up at 7am and had some breakfast on the train before finding out that we were running about 3 hours late. Instead of getting to Nong Khai at 8:25am, we pulled in at about 11:15am.

I stuck with Palli and a Russian guy named William. We got a tuk tuk to the Thailand Immigration office, where we passed through the departure point. We hopped onto a bus and crossed the Friendship Bridge from Thailand into Laos, and then stopped at the Laos Immigration office on the other side. We had to hand in our passports and pay the 1500 baht ($50) for the visa, and we got them back in about 10 minutes. We jumped into a taxi and headed into Vientiane. It was the most uncomfortable ride I’ve ever been on because William has a problem with his spine, so he can’t sit upright. Since we were both in the backseat of a Toyota Camry, he had to lay day with either his head or feet by my knees. Totally awkward.

We got to the Thai embassy and the two guys got out there, with about 5 minutes to spare, and I continued on in the taxi to my hotel. I got to Naphavong Hotel at about 12:30pm, and went out for lunch. There was a Swedish Bakery and Pizza house next door, so I figured that would be an easy option. They had some strange pizza toppings to offer, so I decided to try something new. I had a cheese, ham, banana and curry pizza, it was pretty good actually.

I came back to the hotel to take a 15 minute nap and recharge a bit. I woke up three hours later and realized it was too late to go to any temples or museums. I did go out to see the sunset over the Mekong River. It was a bit too cloudy for a good sunset, but it was a nice place to be anyway. I came back to the hotel and met a few people who are also staying here. It turns out there’s not too much to do here at night, so we just chilled at the hotel. Tomorrow I’m going to check out some temples and museums.